PAS Photo R-B278
You are here
Home › About Our Collection › Exhibits › CPR Telegraph Ledger › CPR Telegraph Ledger - Surrender of the Resistance Forces
CPR Telegraph Ledger - Surrender of the Resistance Forces

Surrender of the Resistance Forces and the Trial of Louis Riel
Louis Riel surrendered on May 15, 1885
Chief Poundmaker surrendered on May 25. Chief Big Bear, after being pursued by Major-General Middleton, surrendered to the North West Mounted Police on July 2.
Not all Métis and First Nations participated in the Resistance. It was chiefly the Métis centered at Batoche that had fought in the battles. Of the Métis’ provisional government council, most pleaded guilty to treason-felony and received a range of sentences. Chiefs Big Bear and Poundmaker were both convicted of treason-felony and sentenced to three years in jail. Eight of their followers were hanged at Battleford. These and other sentences remain controversial. Blair Stonechild states that “in retrospect, the trials of the First Nations defendants were strongly biased by the prejudices of the day…”
Louis Riel’s trial, which began on July 20, was peppered with politics and prejudices. Initially he was to be sent to Winnipeg. However, Sir John A. Macdonald and his cabinet realized that a not-guilty verdict would not be positive for their government, and decided to send Riel to Regina instead. There the procedures for trial were different, and more in the government’s favor. The presiding magistrate of the trial was Hugh Richardson, whose home had been burned at the siege of Battleford. Though Métis and French Canadian jurors could have been chosen, in the end members of the jury were all Protestant and Anglophone. Riel had spent time in asylums in the 1870s after a nervous breakdown, and his counsel tried to defend him on the grounds of insanity. Riel didn’t want this, and his final speech was so eloquent that it proved his sanity. He was convicted of high treason, and though the jury asked for clemency and there were several appeals, he was ultimately hanged in Regina on November 16, 1885.
Riel is possibly the most analyzed figure in Canadian history. He is controversial, and interpretations and opinions about him have changed throughout the years. To some he was a rebel, and to some he was a hero, fighting for his people’s rights. Riel’s religious views led some to believe he was a mad man, obsessed with a spiritual mission, though this opinion is now in the minority, and more effort has been made to better understand Riel in the context of his time.
Click on Telegraph Image to read transcription.
Image of an article title from Regina Leader Nov, 19, 1885
Image of an article title which reads:
RIEL EXECUTED.
He Dies Without a Speech.
A Sane and Beautiful Death.
From the Regina leader, Thursday Evening, November 19, 1885
About Our Collection
- Search Our online Catalogue
- Land Records
- Court Records
- Documentary Art
- Education and School Records
- Family History Research Sources
- Ressources en français / French Resources
- Government Records
- Maps & Architectural Drawings
- Moving Images
- Municipal Records
- Newspapers and Other Publications
- Photographs
- Political and Ministerial Records
- Recorded Sound
- Records from Private Donors
- For Young Historians
- Exhibits
- Saskatchewan Homecoming '71
- Saskatchewan in Bloom: Horticulture on the Prairies
- Ukrainian Orthodox Easter
- Dr. A.S. Shadd
- Winter Sports in Saskatchewan
- The Spanish Flu in Saskatchewan
- CPR Telegraph Ledger
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Introduction
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - The Metis Perspective and Louis Riel
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - The North-West Resistance
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Battle of Fish Creek (April 24)
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Cut Knife Hill (May 2)
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Battle of Batoche (May 9 to 12)
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Frenchman's Butte (May 28)
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Supplies, Casualties and Personal Communications
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Diary of Louis Riel
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Surrender of the Resistance Forces
- CPR Telegraph Ledger - Works Consulted - Suggested Further Readings
- The Regina Cyclone of 1912
- Documenting the Dakota
- 'Stopped in Their Tracks': The 1935 Regina Riot
- Saskatchewan Legislative Building Time Capsule